David Stockman
This time last week it was 75 degrees and sunny. Today? Well, let’s just icy roads and accidents made the morning commute a little more exciting than usual. How can the weather change so much in seven days?!
Well at least one thing hasn’t changed over the last week, and that’s the dicey state of the nation’s economy. With the stock market hitting records level, that may seem like an odd thing to say. But the economy is not the same things as the stock market.
In fact, the past several years have seen an almost inverse relationship take hold between the performance of the Dow Jones and S&P indices and important economic indicators. In a normal, rational economy, if corporate earnings decline or unemployment spikes signaling a economic slowdown, the stock market should decline.
But in today’s Keynesian casino markets, bad economic news is good news from the markets perspective. Why is this? It all has to do with the Federal Reserve’s interest rate policy. You see, bad economic news means big money speculators believe the Fed will continue its policy of suppressing interest rates to near zero to stimulate economic growth. On the other hand, if the economy appears to be doing well, the market starts to think the Fed may hike interest rates, making stocks a less attractive opportunity. Thus the stock market goes down.
In short, it’s a stupid economy that rewards fraud and punishes success.
And after over eight years of stupidity such as near zero percent interest rates, we are now faced with simultaneous Fed created bubbles in stocks, bonds and real estate, which will all at some point burst. And that leads me into today’s story…
Lux Lucet 